The Importance of Setting in Jack Londons "To Build a Fire" and Kate Chopins "The Storm"

Nature in this story is the harsh Yukon wilderness which had, “no promise of sun” and, “was not merely colder than 50 below zero; it was colder than 60 below, than 70 below. I was 75 below zero” (London). The man nor dog had seen the sun for many days due with snow over three feet deep. During all of this the dog’s instinct told him that they needed shelter and fire.

To build a fire is a short story written by Jack London. It is a story about an individual’s choice. The main character’s self-centeredness overcomes him, as he tries to survive the wintery weather in his travel in the Yukon Trail. He made a choice of ignoring the weather warnings, which evidenced danger in his journey. There were warnings like the absence of fellow travelers due to the cold season, but his egoism made him still embark on the journey alone, despite the warnings. The protagonist’s pride and arrogance leads to a regrettable outcome, as it leads to his downfall. The protagonist made the wrong choices because of his egotism, and arrogance and they led to his downfall. He defied nature due to his lack of logical judgment, and

     To Build a Fire is a story is a perfect example of the writing genre Naturalism. It contains elements like survival depends on instinct, nature is impersonal, man lacks free choice, and heredity and environment direct and influence our lives. In the story nature is the antagonist and is very impersonal, as it is in life. The dog

Readers of all ages, literature lovers, and book fanatics often find conflicts within their own lives just as the characters of the stories they read do. Some are able to find a way to overcome and conquer, while others get stuck behind or can not find a way to beat them. In Jack London’s short story called “To Build a Fire,” the main character conflicts with mother nature, who keeps tearing him down at every possible point. The main character, who is only referred to as the Man, is battling his way alone through the harsh temperatures of the Yukon. On this journey he runs into many obstacles and challenges. The Man does not listen to the advice he is given, leading to his inevitable death at the end. The most notable theme London builds

Some stories can have an emotional impact on readers, but every so often a story will reach out and help the reader escape into it. Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” is a fascinating story with a remarkably well described setting, and geographical descriptions of the surrounding Yukon areas. It portrays an overconfident man, whom because of his lack of intuition and stubbornness, succumbs to natures unforgiving climate.

In the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, the protagonist foremost values his pride, which leads to his demise. The story starts off with the protagonist taking a detour in the Yukon so that he could survey the trees in the area (he was doing this so that he could send logs down the river to the gold prospecting camp, where he would sell the wood to the prospectors for money). But, the protagonist’s pride blinds him from what could have and should have done to ensure his survival in the Yukon. About halfway through his journey, he accidentally breaks through the ice on the spring and his foot falls into the water. At the temperatures mentioned in the story (seventy below zero), if he did not dry himself properly, it could lead to serious frostbite and/or death. So, he was forced to build a fire, and the “fire was a success. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old timer on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying down that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had an accident: he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish” (London 8). The man keeps feeding the fire and gets ready to take his (frozen and potentially dangerous) footwear off, and feels content and a sense of satisfaction of disproving the old-timers. But, just as it seemed to be that the fire was stable and strong, snow that was on the branches of the spruce tree he was under fell

The men in the story act accordingly in the situation with the weather constantly try to keep warm. “ The

On an extremely cold winter day (−75 °F or −59 °C), a man, who remains unnamed throughout the story, and his native wolf-dog go on the Yukon Trail after being warned of the dangers of traveling alone in extreme weather conditions by an old man from Sulfur Creek. With nine hours of hiking ahead of him, the man is expecting to meet his associates ("the boys") at a camp in Henderson Creek by that evening. The man is accompanied only by his dog, whose instincts tell it that the weather is too cold for traveling. However, the weather does not deter the man, a relative newcomer to the Yukon, even though the water vapor in the man's exhaled breaths and the saliva from the tobacco he is chewing have frozen his mouth shut. It is here where London's use of symbolism of "heat (sun-fire-life) and cold (darkness-depression-death)" immediately

The trio regarded the future with jaded pessimism. If they made their way to the coast and followed it south they might have a chance of survival. Hearsay told them that South America wasn’t as cold. Their layer of permafrost was only a few inches in the south rather than the foot and a half in Canada. One of the men had already lost two fingers to frostbite. Another lost his child to hypothermia. The third hadn’t had anything to lose except for a drug addiction.

The man had no imagination and only understood facts. He knew it was very cold and his body was numb, but he failed to realize the danger. A newcomer with no experience, he thought he was invincible. Neither the "absence of sun from the

Jack London’s 1908 short story “To Build a Fire”, focuses on a man who is traveling through the Yukon in -°F weather, alone. “To Build a Fire” is set in Yukon, Alaska during its colder months, with no sun. The protagonist known only as “the man” has no first hand experience in such weather therefore underestimates the danger involved. After accidentally stepping knee-high in spring water, the man attempts to build a fire to dry himself off. At first he is seemingly successful in building the fire, until snow from the branches above fall onto the flames and blots them out. When trying a second time the man is too cold to hold anything and can not successfully light the fire. The man then becomes frantic and attempts to run back to camp, but the Yukon is much too large, and the man eventually freezes. The mood in this story is very

lead his readers to believe that the man will suffer a tragedy in the end

“To Build a Fire” is a short story written by Jack London. It is viewed as a masterpiece of naturalist fiction. “To Build a Fire” features a miner who is traveling to the Yukon Territory with a dog as his companion. The miner is the protagonist and the dog companion is called the foil. The dog plays off of the traits of the protagonist. “The central motif of “To Build a Fire” concerns the struggle of man versus nature.” (Short Story Criticism) The most argued point in the short story is the reason of the protagonist death. “Some critics believe that it was his lack of intuition and imagination that lead to his death, while others say that he dies because of panic.” (Short Story Criticism) The protagonist in “To Build a Fire” struggles in

Jack London’s stories “To Build a Fire” and "Love of Life” can be summarized in a short précis’s. "Love of Life” is a story about a man abandoned in the Yukon by his partner Bill after he sprained his ankle. Along the way, the man struggles with natures forces, hunger and humanity are sacrificed in an attempt to survive its dangerous territory. Towards the end the man is crawling, his knees are bloody stumps, he is powered only by his will to live. A wolf follows him, too sick to hunt; it limps after the man hoping for him to die. The man makes the choice to kill the wolf, sinking his teeth into its neck for an hour and a half, and later wriggles on to a beach where he is spotted by a ship’s crew and lives on. “To Build a Fire” is the story

“It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of the sun.” Throughout Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” there is a sense of slow burning dread as readers are introduced to the man and his gradual, but inevitable death, brought upon by himself. London’s short story opens with the main character, a man, foolishly embarking on the long journey back to camp in the freezing Yukon, accompanied only by a husky mix. It is in this unforgivingly harsh weather that the man meets his fate, at his own hand. From the beginning of the story, the man displays flawed behaviors and personality traits that render him unable to survive on his solo journey in the Yukon, becoming his own worst enemy.